Stats came from mayoral committee member

To get the source of the statement, Africa Check spoke to the article’s author, Lilly Wimberly. Wimberly told us the data was provided by councillor Xanthea Limberg’s office.

Limberg is the city’s mayoral committee member for informal settlements, water and waste services, and energy. She gave Africa Check a breakdown of the city’s water consumption patterns by category for the financial years 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Claim

“65% of [city] water goes to formal residential customers”

Verdict

correct

At last count, the city was using 610 million litres of water per day.

The city’s water consumption data shows that residential units (69.9%) used the majority of supplied water. The bulk of this residential consumption was in formal settlements (64.5%), while informal settlements accounted for 3.6% of the consumption.

But how is this water use determined? Limberg explained to Africa Check that “the city has at least one meter [for] all formal developed stands and we have accurate information on the land use and land zoning of each stand therefore we are able to determine consumption levels per land use category”.

The study compared individual water meter readings from the City of Cape Town’s treasury system. Readings before water restrictions (1 October 2003 to 1 April 2004) and during water restrictions (1 October 2004 to 1 April 2005) were collected.

The researchers grouped their findings into four land use categories, namely residential (single standing dwellings), industrial, commercial and institutional, “other” (including group housing, flats and farmland) and “unknown”.

The study found that water use in the residential category accounted for 55.1% of total water use during the 2003/2004 period and 54.2% of total water use during the 2004/2005 period. (Note: Water use fell by approximately 14% following the restrictions.)

Because of this, Jacobs notes that the 65% figure the City of Cape Town provides is “plausible because we did not include flats in our sample set… [the city] lists “flats and complexes” as 9.2% and 9.5% of the total, so give or take a few minor errors I will believe the 65% without arguing about it”.

Claim

“Half of [residential water] is used for non-essential purposes”

Verdict

unproven

What exactly does the city consider as non-essential water use?

“We regard outdoor water use as non-essential and we are allowing essential water use only for bathing, eating and drinking,” Limberg told Africa Check. “The quantities of water required for outdoor purposes are on the whole much greater than quantities necessary for indoor functions.”

We asked how the city measured the use of water within a residential setting. Limberg noted that the city had conducted “various engineering research analyses and site studies to determine typical patterns of household water consumption in order to be able to collate such a breakdown”.

“We also make use of other national and international research to get guideline figures,” Limberg added.

Africa Check asked for access to the research mentioned, but the city hasn’t supplied it yet.

Jacobs told Africa Check that, on average, an individual will use between 100 litres to 250 litres of water per day. “Most people will use 120 litres [per day] as a realistic low consumption for a house connection,” he said.

With 69.9% of supplied water going to formal and informal residential units – or about 426.4 million litres per day – this would mean that the 4,004,793 people living in the Cape Town metropolitan municipality consume, on average, 106.5 litres per person per day.

“These numbers are very low, and one could argue that there is very little room for ‘non-essential use’ in these current numbers,” Jacobs told Africa Check.

“Bear in mind though that there is virtually no outdoor demand in winter in Cape Town, when it is raining and garden irrigation is minimized and swimming pools do not need topping up. Similarly, during water restrictions – as in our current situation – it can be assumed that all potable water consumption is for indoor purposes.”

In a previous fact-check, we highlighted that few studies have been conducted in South Africa to measure water end-use as they are expensive to run. One study,though, found that 32 respondents surveyed via the internet – who were “likely to be the higher income users” – estimated using 37.6% of their total water consumption on watering their gardens.

Comment on this report

Cape Town is now on level 6B water restrictions, the consumption target the city wants residents to reach has been lowered yet again to 450Ml/day.

“Day zero” (when city taps run dry) has been pushed back till 9 July 2018 (well into our winter season), but water now costs residents more than 500% more.

None of the city’s planned temporary desalination plants are complete and active as yet.

While most of the city’s supplied water is used for residential purposes. Its important to note that the main dams the city rely on actually are owned by Department of Water and Sanitation (a national state agency) and not the city.

Most of the water (the remaining bulk supply) in those dams were used by agriculture and not urban use.

Punitive measures were mainly aimed at city residents, and resulted in a water tariff increase of over 500%.

The city’s target makes no sense. If you are aiming for 450Ml/d and residential use is 70% of this, i.e. 315Ml/d, this would mean households should be trying to get consumption down to 78 litres per day (i.e. 315Ml/d divided by 4 million people) and not to 50 litres per day. The current target of 50 litres per day equates to approx. 200Ml/d (4million people multiplied by 50 litres/day). There would therefore be a balance of 250Ml/d for non-residential use if the 50 litres per day is trying to get us to 450Ml/d. Even if the non-residential usage it kept at the current use of 180 Ml/d (i.e. 30% of 610Ml/d) there is still a balance of 70Ml/day not accounted for (i.e. 180Ml/d versus 250 Ml/d). Is this for agriculture? Until the city is more transparent with their target and usage stats by providing a breakdown of residential and non-residential, the city’s residents are going to bear the brunt of trying to achieve a target which is overly conservative and it therefore needs to be revised upwards. There is also no way of knowing whether the non-residential sector is doing their bit to achieve the set target and to hold them accountable.

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For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa Check is an independent, non-partisan organisation which assesses claims made in the public arena using journalistic skills and evidence drawn from the latest online tools, readers, public sources and experts, sorting fact from fiction and publishing the results.